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Casimiro Berenguer Padilla was born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. His parents were Alejandro Berenguer, a mason, and Eugenia Padilla, a housewife. At age 6, he emigrated to the Dominican Republic with his parents, where he spent his childhood and part of his youth. He also learned to trade as a cobbler there. In 1929, he returned to Puerto Rico and established a shoe repair shop in Ponce.[6]

Berenguer Padilla was an instructor of the "Cadetes de la República" (Cadets of the Republic) in Ponce.[7] He set up his shoe repair shop at Marina and Aurora streets, at a building used by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to celebrate its meetings in that city. The Insular Police carried out the 1937 Ponce Massacre, under the instructions of US-installed governor Blanton Winship, outside this building.[8]

In 1938, Berenguer and other Nationalists were accused of the murder of Col. Luis Irizarry of the Puerto Rican National Guard, in their attempt on the life of U.S.-installed governor Blanton Winship in retaliation for the Blanton-ordered Ponce Massacre. The other nationalists also accused of murder by the government of Blanton Winship in relation to the massacre were Luis Castro Quesada, Julio Pinto Gandía, Lorenzo Piñeiro, (Interim President and Interim Secretary General of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party), Plinio Graciani, Tomás López de Victoria, Martín González Ruíz, Elifaz Escobar, Luis Angel Correa, Santiago González, and Orlando Colón Leyro. Of this group, only Tomás López de Victoria, Santiago González, Elifaz Escobar and Berenguer Padilla were members of the cadets.[7] A grand jury was convened, and the accused were tried, but all the Nationalists, including Berenguer, were released.[9]

On September 28, 1938, Berenguer was convicted with other Nacionalistas in connection with the attempted assassination of Governor Winship during the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the U.S. military invasion of Puerto Rico. The other Nationalists convicted were Tomás López de Victoria, Elifaz Escobar, Santiago González, Vicente Morciglio, Leocadio López, Juan Pietri, Guillermo Larrogaiti, and Prudencio Segarra.[10]